I am grateful for bringing this person into our company for the following reasons:

His hard work and dedication to both the company and our clients.

His high level of integrity.

His radiant smile and laugh when he was pleased.

His straightforwardness.

His getting on with things even when he was not necessarily in agreement.

For challenging me to do better at working towards finding solutions.

For allowing me to see his passion for his area of expertise.

For being part of the team to make the company work so everyone could benefit.

For maintaining our high level of standard.

For his persistence to tackle any challenge that came his way.

For standing firm in what he believed in.

For his commitment to his work and our clients even when he seemed to be under a lot of pressure from his personal life.

For his firm handshake.

For allowing me to see how bitterness and resentment can fester and eat a person inside and affect their health and judgment.

For the strength and confidence, he exhibits in his character.

For working in a team as well as being capable of getting on with things on his own.

For ensuring we serve our clients to the best of our ability.

For challenging me to see more than my point of view on things.

For allowing me to see anger can affect one’s health and judgment.

For challenging me to find a fair solution where we all benefit.

For allowing me to see how anger built up in oneself by many different things over time can culminate to a point where a person just explodes and directs all the pent-up anger in one direction, often towards those who mean the most to them.

For allowing me to see that when one only wants to see their truth, we are blind to the truth of others.

Allowing me to experience and see that everyone lives their own truth based on their value system and thus based on what they deem important to them in their lives.

For teaching me to make a continued effort to understand rather than trying to be understood.

For showing me that it is impossible to make everyone happy all of the time no matter how hard you try.

That you are bound to piss someone off at some point because it is impossible to meet one’s own expectations, let alone other people’s expectations.

That clarity of mutual understanding is imperative to a foundation of an agreeable relationship.

That there is always a solution if one never ceases to give up working on it.

That language and culture are one of the greatest roadblocks to us accepting each other for who we truly are. This reminds me of the Bible story of the Tower of Babel where God scattered the nations by giving them into different tribes and languages, thus dividing them through their inability to communicate.

That sometimes it is wise to sit back and let things take their course instead of working oneself up unnecessarily about something that in this moment is too rigid to move. Like Q-20, you need to spray it onto the rusted bolt and leave it for a time to sink in before you attempt again to work the nut and bolt loose from each other.

For highlighting that one can learn enough about human behavior and better ways to more effectively communicate with our fellow human being.

That to depend on someone or something to behave in a predictable manner is to create one’s own pain and suffering.

That the morals of right and wrong are made by man and the only truth is one’s own truth based on our values.

That there is nothing you can judge someone for doing that you have not also done to the same degree. “Be the one who hath not sinned to throw the first stone.” We are quick to judge others in an attempt to hide our own shame.

To fear nothing, as everything has a lesson in it for us to learn.

That there is no right or wrong, but rather; only one’s perception of a moment.

Thank you for the many lessons you have brought to me to learn and reflect upon.